MY wife has just been diagnosed with macular degeneration. She has been told that certain treatment, involving injections in her eye, would stop further degeneration and save her sight.
Calderdale Primary Health Care Trust will NOT fund this treatment until she goes blind in the first eye, but will fund the same treatment if she gets it in her other eye.
There is a 55% chance she will get it in her other eye. She can, however, pay for this treatment privately at a cost in excess of £1,000 per injection.
She has been given laser treatment on the NHS, but to see if this has had any effect she needs an OCT scan. Calderdale do not have such a scanner (but they are supposedly getting one).
We therefore have to pay for the scan at a private clinic. This rejection of treatment is down to cost-cutting and no other reason. The doctors I have spoken to all state that cost is the cause. Apparently the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside Primary Care Trust have joined together to refuse treatment.
In Scotland the whole of the above treatment is free, including for the first eye.
This kind of decision is an outrage.
Your vision is of extreme importance and to let sight go in one eye just to save money that has been lost previously through incompetent management is unacceptable.
Next they will be saying things like, amputate the first leg because of gangrene but we will treat the other leg if the same occurs.
Why are we paying to a health service that acts in this way? It is this Government and this health care trust to blame.
My wife will go blind in one eye while healthcare executives drive round in lease cars paid out of NHS monies and eat food paid by NHS monies (this happens at meetings and conferences). They do not pay for parking at Calderdale Hospital. How can they stop treatment, due to finance they are trying to recoup from overspends in the past through their incompetence.
Gordon Brown should know better than anyone the value of sight and should stop this disgusting attitude.
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